Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Phi Beta Kappa

I’ve always been proud of my Phi Beta Kappa membership and have long supported my institution’s (thus far unsuccessful) quest for a campus chapter. Laurie Morrow’s post over at Democracy Project may lead me to revisit both positions. She calls attention to two things: a change in the tone of The American Scholar, described here, and the implication, impossible to prove, that George Mason University was denied a chapter because it revoked a speaking invitation of Michael Moore, described here.

I have to confess that I stopped reading The American Scholar when Joseph Epstein stopped editing it, but I think I’ll take a look again. If it continues to be as "engaged" as it was in the issue discussed in the WSJ piece, I’ll be compelled, sadly, to come to Laurie’s conclusion. Yet another support for the university’s aspiration to an independent standpoint, to a timelessly critical remove from contemporary concerns, will have bitten the dust.

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